A forum for members of the Northen family to share news, experiences, ideas and opinions.

Monday, June 19, 2017

Old Fogey's College Advice

Last month, my great-niece Haidyn graduated from high
school and will be heading on to college.
She will be the first of her generation in our family to do so. I know that my parents (her
great-grandparents) would be very proud of her.
They were never able to attend college and, in my mother’s case even
finish high school. I know something
about how Haidyn must feel because, though it seems common place – even
compulsory – now, I was the first person on either side of my family to attend
college. It is a bridge that, once you cross over it, you can never go back.
The best analogy is that it is something like it must be for men and women who
go away to war. No description of it to
others is going to convey what it is like to those who have not been there. You leave not being the same person who
entered. It changes your world view; you
can no longer see things in the same way you once did.

While advice from a 71 year-old man is about as welcome as
dandelions in a suburban lawn, I’d like to offer a bit of it for any family
members of Haidyn’s generation that are planning to go college. The first is: go away to school. Education
is more than only books. Learning first
hand that there are people who see the world differently than you do – who talk
a little differently, dress differently, have a different background of
experiences, have value systems different from yours – is a part of the
education itself. Simply living in an
environment that is different from what you are used to broadens you, teaches you something. Seattle
doesn’t feel the same as Phoenix. There is a poem by Wallace Stevens called
“Anecdote in A Jar” in which he places a jar on a hill in Tennessee and instantly that jar becomes the
central reference point for everything we do. While our house, our home town,
our family may always be the emotional center of our universe, it is not the
physical center. Moving that glass to
another hill gives you perspective and that is not something that you get by
staying home or going to Florida
for spring break.

When the time for college came, I urged all of my children
to pick a place that was not in their geographic backyard. Pat was the first one and, in all candor, he
would have been very comfortable staying in Buffalo and going to UB. Instead, he went spent his first year at SyracuseUniversity because at the time he was
interested in going into journalism and the school had a good reputation. It was not the best experience. He had gone
to high City Honors in Buffalo
where the students were highly motivated. His friends went off to Harvard,
Stanford, etc. They were kids who were
bright but worked hard for what they got. What he learned at Syracuse was that the rest of the world was
not like this. They were interested in
partying, joining frats and drinking (some things haven’t changed). Having to
go to class was a minor annoyance for them.
Their parents paid for their education, so they didn’t care. Despite
good classes, Pat learned that Syracuse
wasn’t for him. He also learned that he
was more interested in political science and ended up transferring to Buffalo. Nevertheless, he learned something valuable.

In a somewhat different vein, Maya went to the University of Indiana and, her first reaction was an
incredulous “Everyone there is white!” On
the up side, she added that despite their counterparts in New Jersey, school officials and employees
at IU were actually friendly. While she
learned that she could probably never live in Indiana, she loved the school, and her
education and made long time friendships.

A second piece of advice that I would give is to take some
courses that you enjoy. You may not get
the chance again to try out some of the things that colleges and universities
give you a chance to do. I know. For
some people that sounds frivolous, like a luxury. I’ve worked with enough students over my life
time that have come from backgrounds where they thought they would never be
able to make it to college. They are
seeking an education to get a good job, to lift themselves and their families
out of poverty. They feel the imperative to stick to the game plan and pick up
skills and a certificate that can be cashed in for a better standard of
living. I respect that. Not everyone has a choice. But in that case,
what people are looking for is training, not education – and that is a whole
different ballgame. Education is
expansive, not one directional. My model
here is my son Eli. Eli was admitted to
the architecture program at the University
of Maryland. It is
extremely competitive and famous for the fact that during the junior and senior
years students basically sleep all night in the architecture studio. Nevertheless, his first couple of years he
experimented with classes that appealed to him like calligraphy and Italian. It’s made him a more interesting and empathetic
person and over a decade later, he is doing just fine as an architect with his
own firm. You have your whole life to
work, often in ways that give you little time to pursue things that really
interest you. Haidyn, I have no idea
what you are planning to study or what
your career plans are, but I say, take advantage of it while you can. Let
yourself grow.

My final wish for each of those of the next generation is
that if at all possible, you take a semester abroad – or spend some time living
in a foreign country. It combines both
of the first two experiences that I mentioned and adds a deeper third
dimension. Each of my children was lucky enough to be able to live for a while
in another country prior to having to get out and dive into their job or
career: Pat (Germany),
Maura (England), Melissa (Guatemala), Maya (Australia),
and Eli (Turkey).
Again, it is a fact of life that this is not possible for everyone. If you are already married and supporting a
family, it probably is not a possibility. On the other hand, when Maya took a
semester in Australia
with IU, aside from plane fare, it cost her no more than she would otherwise
have been paying. She got all of her
college credits and even ended up finishing college a semester early. While
going away to school is a big step towards allowing your perspective to
broaden, you are still to a large extent playing on home field - more or less
the same language, same laws, same religious and cultural values. Staying for some time in another country
allows you to be able to shift your prejudicial lenses some. We all have them
and, particularly in this era of Trump nativism, it is crucial to be able to
get outside and see what the world looks like from another vantage point. There is no better educator than travel.

Last week my grandson Connor graduated from middle school,
Maggie and Owen had their kindergarten graduation, and Daisie, the youngest of
all my grandchildren Face Timed with me and said Grandpa for the first
time. Chances are that by the time
Daisie is ready for college, I won’t be around any more. Those of us who have
been through college have frequently heard that in its origin the word educate
means to draw out. It is not about
cramming stuff in, but about bringing yourself out to a larger understanding of
the world. I am fortunate that all of my children value education – in the
broadest sense of the word, so I know that Connor, Maggie, Owen, Daisie and all
of the others will do fine without my advice.
It is comforting to know that. Still, one of the prerogatives of getting
older is the freedom to stick your nose in and say it anyway. Education
transforms. I can’t imagine who I would
be now, if I’d never had the opportunity for college.

5 comments:

I agree on all of it. Unfortunately, so many kids will never have the opportunity to travel outside of their area, and the opportunity to even go to a different part of the country, or even the state, is such an experience. It also teaches you how many things you take for granted that you didn't even realize you did. Like the fact that the toilet paper and paper towels in your parents' house don't pop up out of nowhere - someone actually buys them (to this day I do not have napkins, we use paper towels)! Or how to write a check, or balance your bank account. So many kids have never done a load of laundry or grocery shopped on their own. All life skills that no class, no matter how advanced, will teach you. And when you go away, unless you have an incredibly generous roommate with a lot of time on their hands, you have to.

I was actually lucky, which sounds weird to say, that I got to Indiana and said "Everyone's white!". For a lot of people, it's the opposite - they have so little experience interacting with others who aren't just like them, whether it's race, orientation, a disability, a religion, etc. While there are exceptions I'm sure (i.e. someone who goes away to a religious-run college for one gender only), it's rare that you'd get through even a year of college outside of your area without at least meeting someone unlike yourself. And that's more valuable than all of the classes you'll take. Or at least prepares you more for life.

I would add that I think going away to school is also a great way to re-examine and re-invent yourself. Most of us, upon graduation, have a large number of friends and family who are around us on a daily basis for our whole lives. We often assume parts of our identities based upon these influences such as assuming you are a democrat because your whole family is, or being called the class clown so often that you don't question it. When you head into a new environment with new people you have the ability to evaluate these assumptions. You get to make new relationships with new kinds of people, take on new activities, and allow people to form new impressions of you. Starting first with college, and then twice when I relocated across the country, I found that I really needed to think hard about where I wanted to be, what I wanted to do, and who I wanted to spend my time with. This allows for self-reflection and growth that is harder to accomplish when you remain in a single setting.

Maya and Maura both make good points. As Maya said, being away from home makes you depend upon yourself more - you can't just save up your laundry to take home to Mom on weekends. Just as important, though perhaps less obvious until you are in the situation is the whole concept of identity. For most people, it is probably not something that you have to think about until you are put in the situation that takes you away from those people and environments that you tend to identify with. I know that I tended to think of my family's way of doing things was just the norm until I moved away and realized that it wasn't. When I was still home and attending junior college, I was enamored of existentialism and the Tao Teh Ching, and distanced myself from my Catholic upbringing; however, when I went away to a largely Protestant university with required religion classes, I found myself becoming the defender of Catholicism in class discussions. A nice little irony.

Great read. I am so proud of Haidyn graduating from High School and choosing a college she is going to attend. My wish for my Daughters was fulfill when they all got their degrees!! I never went to college so that was my wish for them. Now my first granddaughter is going.

It's funny, sometimes I wonder if I would have been better off staying closer to home - I landed back there anyway after my second year. But, one of my most valuable experiences was meeting a lifelong friend from New Mexico. If I hadn't, I'm not sure I would have ever considered living out West myself. And, that turned out pretty well. 😊